Showing off

Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was an epidemic of clock towers, and every self-respecting London borough had to have one. We even have one here in Epsom. Heritage now, but plenty of people were cross about it when it was going up. Vulgar monstrosity. Although there was the excuse that at that time there were plenty of otherwise decent people who could not afford their own watches.

Towards the end of the twentieth century it was the turn of the memorialists, and every self-respecting organisation had to put something up. Preferably some loud and ugly bit of sculpture, but at the very least a tablet fixed to some inoffensive wall.

While now, at the start of the twenty first century, the performance & conceptual artists seem to have got a good grip on the very important people who dish out (mostly) less important people's money on ridiculous art works. Hopefully they get their money's worth in the form of invitations to edgy parties in the metropolis. Perhaps it helps that our very own Dame Trace (of reference 2) has been made a Professor of Drawing - of all things - at the Royal Academy. Maybe the Prince Regent, who might have appreciated her stunts, was once their patron.

However that may be, in the present case it seems that people worried about the declining standing of Oxford Street in the world of retail thought that a visitor attraction was what was needed. And fell for the people at reference 1. Conceptual foreigners. Didn't the Oxford Street people know that we can build this sort of stuff at home? That is to say two million pounds worth of parched trees and grass perched on a sort of green mound, draped over a framework of scaffolding.

They have a smaller version at Wisley, looking equally parched last time we were there. Maybe the two million pounds should have been given to Wisley to help them bring their mound up to scratch?

PS: to be fair to MVDRV, some of the work showcased on their website below does look quite interesting.

Reference 1: https://mvrdv.nl/.

Reference 2: https://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.com/search?q=dame+trace.You get even more if you take the dame out of the trace.